Physiology of shock

[Tilly2]

Last week, I received some tragic, shocking news via the telephone. My reaction was to gasp and hold my breath for several seconds. I could not speak and just listened to my friend who just talked and talked.
Why, physiologically, do you gasp and raise your hand to your mouth when you hear something shocking? Is it part of the fight or flight adrenaline reaction? I could have done neither. I was breathless and speechless.

[Sqad]

Tilly.....bit intense for young sqad particularly at this time of the morning, but it is quite complicated and combines changes in the Autonomic Nervous System, at local nervous level and also at central level (brain).

That Tilly is my contribution.......

[ummmm]

I know exactly what you mean. I think it's hard for your brain to process the information being said to you so leaves you speechless.

[Tilly2]

Thank you sqad and ummmm. I didn't expect this to be an easy question to answer. It's obviously a set of complicated physical reactions which might be difficult to explain. I think also, with my mention of 'fight or flight', I might be confusing shock with stress.

[ummmm]

When I received a phonecall with some bad news the first thing they said to me was 'are you holding the baby'

By the time I'd put the baby down my mind had already ran through loads of scenarios.

[Tilly2]

Yes and people, on the T.V. say, 'I think you need to sit down.'

[ummmm]

Yeah...shock of information can make you collapse.

[islasmum]

In a similar vein, do other people find that if they have had really upsetting news, which causes them to cry, do you want to curl up into (I suppose) a foetal position? I know that I do.

[missmuppet]

My mother, bless her cotton ones, left me a voicemail message telling me that my dad had died that morning. I was at work when i got the message and my reaction was to throw my mobile to the ground, almost like i'd hd an electric shock from it, and then i literally stopped breathing. My colleagues had to slap me as i was turning blue. At first they thought i was having an asthma attack because i couldn't speak for about 10 minutes afterwards. Even now i cannot speak to my mum on the anniversary of dad's passing as it just puts me right back there again.

[Tilly2]

It's strange, isn't it, that you can remember exactly how you felt? That's why I asked this question because I keep thinking about how I reacted when I was shocked.

[Eve]

I'm the same, with the hand over my mouth thing too.

Interestingly, on a lesser lever, when I was having some CBT for eating disorder issues my counsellor pointed out to me that she could see when there was something I felt uncomfortable taking about (more hearing or being asked in this scenario) as I'd stop breathing and tense up (clench my hands etc...). I'd never noticed but she's right.

I always saw it as some kind of a control state.

[littleja]

GOSH, YOU ARE RIGHT, THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT I HAVE DONE UPON HEARING SHOCKINGLY BAD NEWS AND HAD URGES TO CURL INTO FEOTAL POSITION. IT MUST BE AN AUTOMATIC HUMAN REACTION TO SHOCK.

[erin-x]

I knew someone had asked this before.. I thought the last answer was very good. Raising our hand up to our mouth as a sort of barrier against the situation.

Read here.... http://www.theanswerb.../Question1116691.html

[Tilly2]

Thank you for that link, erin-x.